For example, I looked up the term freeboard because I’d never even heard it.
Do you know how draft and waterline (not) relates to displacement?
Curious if you all think this looks better (he is 195 pounds, 6 ft)
Yes, a bit, but he fits more in the usual design ‘target’ of 185 cm and 80 kg.
Also the trim looks better here.
I think maybe it does weathercock for me a bit, I’m not sure.
You will find that out when paddling with cross-winds,
especially when you don’t have a skeg or don’t use it.
Low volume (in this case 315 l in stead of 324 l ?) does not necessarily mean lower (performance) capacity or displacement. It just means there is less room aboard or in this case they have down sized the cockpit to create better contact for smaller paddlers?
Most touring kayaks are capable of carrying sufficient gear for an overnight.
So you think I should try adding a gallon jug of water or something? To the stern?
For touring purpose this may work, but for the rough and tumble in real surf conditions this is a bad idea in my experience.
In some ways it is better to be ignorant with terminology like draft, waterline, displacement and freeboard because it is too easy to take them out of context.
Kayaks can be too small or too big for your use case.
If your are much lighter than 80 kg,
touring kayaks (and canoes) are often bigger than you need,
so you want the best compromise in that respect,
because some handle better than others when lightly loaded.
I carry a bit of trim in either of my sea kayaks, one is officially too much capacity for me and the other right-sized. But they both take some trim to handle the best. Tons of gear for a day trip on the ocean anyway, not hard to manage.
But on the water jug idea - problem with using something like that is keeping it from rolling around. Get float bags for the front and the back, put something like regular plastic bottles of water or emergency change of clothing in and inflate the float bags so the stuff is not rolling around.
You can play with the ballast part. The one that is officially over capacity takes the trim in the bow and the other in the stern. It is just a matter of where each hull needs a little more anchoring to behave well.
There is a formula for draft and displacement, if you search the forums, you can find it… but the problem is the hull shape has to be used in the formula. That makes it basically unusable for a real-world result. A V shape for example, if very lightly loaded only displaces water at the bottom, narrow part of the V. As you add more weight the V sinks deeper in the water so adding 100 lbs may increase the draft by 1 inch, adding a second 100 lbs may only add 1/2 inch to the draft. In real life the hull forms are too complex to be captured in an easy formula.
I use square-sided jugs (gallons and half gallons, easy to find this time of year since most cider vendors use both) and fill them to capacity with no air gap so they are stable as a brick and don’t slosh. Partially inflating a float bag in the hatch wedges them where I want them to stick.
If it weathercocks, that would confirm that the stern is lighter than the bow, allowing wind to push it around, which then swings the bow INTO the wind. Make sense? Skegs are intended to counteract weathercocking, by sticking the blade down near the back end and planting it more in place against side forces.
A bit more on weathercocking. Turning into the wind in difficult conditions is the preferred response. Lee cocking is when the boat does the opposite.
Once you get used to a skeg you can cheat and make a turn into the wind easier just by pulling it up all or part way. I mean, you can lay down a proper edge and all of that and probably should. But if I am tired and coming home and the wind is willing to give me some help I will take it.
If your boat turns upwind when paddling with a crosswind, this is called weather helm, also called weathercock or weathervane.
If your boat turns downwind when paddliing with a crosswind, this is called lee helm.
Most kayak designs experience some weather helm when paddling with a crosswind, especially when not properly trimmed, that is bow heavy.
You could have noticed weather helm when paddling your other kayak with the rudder up, otherwise you may have corrected this automatically with your rudder.
If boat control is getting dicey, it is generally considered to be safer to be biased to point into the wind rather than away from it. So the default in most kayak hull designs if nothing else alters the boat’s behavior, like how you have it trimmed, is to weathercock.
I tend to agree with this. If the boat is already trying to evade my control I would rather have my bow pointing into the problem.
I think most touring kayaks are designed not to lee helm and possibly minimal weather helm, as that is the better of the two evils.
Lee helm is considered worse, because when there is a problem downwind it makes it even more difficult to go upwind to avoid that.
If there is a problem upwind, weather helm is usually not that a problem as you can slow down and or paddle or drift downwind away from the problem upwind.
I would gladly take weathercocking over leecocking for one reason. The latter is more likely to send me somewhere I don’t want to go faster than weathercocking would. Most people paddle forward better than they paddle backward OR make corrections.
It’s just easier to counteract weathercocking, and a skeg helps a lot.
Low dispacement boats are not comaptible with large humans or overnight trips. I like sea kayaks with some rocker because they are so manuevarable. Kayaks keep getting shorter which is a problem. The only sea kayak I have ever paddled a lot was a Pygmy Coho. At 17’9" it was just the thing on Pyramid Lake, NV or Lake Tahoe in big rollers.
Weathercocking is an issue for many paddlers. Once you learn to brace and control your boat it is usually not that hard even without a skeg or rudder.
I would ask how often water gets into the boat. For sea kayaks the spray skirt should be considered as part of the hull of the boat. The kayak is designed to have water wash over the top of the boat from time to time. The spray skirt is designed to minimize the amount of water that gets into the boat. If you are getting too much water in the boat, the boat may not have enough free board due to being over capacity or your spray skirt might not be waterproof. I would more importantly ask if you are comfortable in the boat.
It has stayed bone dry. Edging and ferry waves haven’t caused any incursion. Originally I felt the skirt might be too tight but it has loosened a bit.
It’s very comfortable and I have good contact although I might try moving the seat back a bit especially since the stern looks high. I think I have 1-2 inches.
With LV, high rockered boat, incremental changes to seat placement is the way to go, to assess impact on weathercocking and rough water handling. Here is the related discussion about considerations in doing the same with my Sterling Progression.
